About the Author

Earl Carter has been working in the field of computer security for about ten years. He started learning about computer security while working at the Air Force Information Warfare Center. Earl's primary responsibility there was securing Air Force networks against cyber attacks. In 1998, he accepted a job with Cisco Systems to perform IDS research for NetRanger (currently Cisco IDS) and NetSonar (Cisco Secure Scanner). Earl spent approximately one year writing signatures for NetRanger and developing software modules for NetSonar. Currently, he is a member of the Security Technologies Assessment Team at Cisco. This team is part of the Consulting Engineering department. Earl's duties involve performing security evaluations on numerous Cisco products as well as consulting with other teams at Cisco to help enhance the security of Cisco products. He has examined various products, from the PIX Firewall to the Cisco CallManager. Presently, Earl holds a CCNA certification and is working on earning his CCIE certification with a security emphasis.

In his spare time, Earl is very active at church as a youth minister and lector. He also enjoys training in taekwondo, in which he currently holds a second-degree black belt and is working on becoming a certified American Taekwondo Association (ATA) instructor.